The Intern Win

Friday, May 11th, 2018

A little while ago, I decided to start hiring interns to help me grow my speaking business. From now on if there’s something I don’t want to do or don’t know how to do, I ask them to take care of it for me. This takes many tasks off my plate, enabling me to work on other areas of my business that need my personal attention.

With interns I also get the benefit of having out-of-the-box thinkers on staff who have fresh eyes and a new way of looking at things. Because they see things differently than I do, they have been invaluable when it comes to brainstorming and developing action plans.

All in all, bringing interns on board has allowed me to hire super smart and innovative people without having the expense of a full-time staff. I call this a major win.

But this win isn’t just a one-way street, because my interns also win. For starters, they get experience with the tasks I’ve hired them to do, experience they can use down the road when they’re ready to fully enter their careers. And they get the experience while also earning a paycheck at the same time.

So, what’s my point? My point is that there is great value in taking the things you hate to do or don’t know how to do and instead of making lots of excuses, seeking to find a win-win solution.

Instead of hiring interns, I could have easily just made excuses and said that I wasn’t making progress in my career because I didn’t have the time to tend to the tasks required to build my business. I could have also resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t getting more speaking gigs because I didn’t know how to effectively create a social media campaign, or whatever the case may be.

Yes, these may be things that have made my journey more complex, but they should not stonewall me from achieving what I have set out to do. I want to speak so badly, to share my message so that others can live a more passionate life, so much so that I refuse to give in to excuses. Instead, I will find solutions.

Look at some of the obstacles in your life at the moment. What are some excuses you’ve given, the things you say to yourself (and to others), as to why you have not overcome them? Are you telling yourself that you’re just too busy and don’t have enough time? Maybe you’ve convinced yourself that you’re just not good at certain things, and that you’ll never be able to improve your situation.

Now, look at those excuses again and brainstorm possible solutions. If your issue is time, can you follow my lead and hire an intern? If it’s something you don’t know how to do, what about taking a free online course so you can gain enough knowledge to tackle it and move forward?

Finding solutions means that you get to replace excuses with wins. That’s one trade that is well worth making.